Two to Tangle. Leslie Kelly

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      AT 10:05, CHLOE STOOD IN her hotel room, chewing a hole into her lip, staring at her own reflection above the bathroom sink. Troy hadn’t shown up at the dinner banquet, so it had been several hours since she’d seen him. Yes, she’d had several hours in which to totally chicken out on their date in the bar.

      “You can’t do this. You know that, right?” she told the mirror.

      It’s just a drink.

      “Baloney, it’s not just a drink. You were there—you felt the heat, Chloe Weston. You meet him tonight and you might be with him until tomorrow morning.”

      Is that such a bad thing?

      “Yes. It’s a bad thing. You can’t get involved with your boss. This job is too important. Losing it could very well mean dropping out of school and getting a day job to make rent money.”

      So when does living get to be as important as working?

      That was the question of the hour. When did she get to live? Chloe had borne the emotional responsibility for her mother’s and sister’s well-being since she was twelve years old, right after her mother’s second husband had walked out. That had been the worst year, when Chloe and Morgan had been separated from their mother for months. Once they got back together, Chloe had been determined they’d never be parted again.

      So Chloe was the one who’d learned to fake a communicable disease when the landlord came to call. The one who’d bartered baby-sitting services with the owner of the kids’ consignment store up the street to keep Morgan clothed. Through the other husbands, boyfriends, towns, people and jobs, Chloe had never let herself forget one thing: she was the one who had to keep it together. Morgan was too young and Jeanine too unpredictable.

      Following her heart—or, in this case, her libido—was not something Chloe usually allowed herself to do. So why not do it…just this once? You know you want to. Don’t be a chicken.

      “Oh, shut up,” she muttered aloud to the insidious voice. She sometimes pictured a little cartoon devil, complete with horns and a tail, sitting on her left shoulder whispering in her ear when she contemplated doing something really stupid. On her other shoulder, there perched not an angel, but a two-inch-tall version of Sister Mary Frances.

      The sister had been her second-grade teacher during Chloe’s single year at a parochial school—a year prompted by one of her flaky mother’s religious experimentation periods. That was before her real father had split, when they’d had something of a normal life. Chloe had spent most of second grade sitting in a corner until she learned how to behave like a proper young lady. Instead of learning patience and obedience, she’d actually used the time-outs to imagine ways to get even with the Penguin, as the kids called her. So the Sister Mary Frances voice seldom won out.

      Finally, sick of having a conversation with her own sun-pinkened face in the mirror, she grabbed her purse and slammed out of the room. The СКАЧАТЬ